Thoughts in the Dark
by Ellenore Carter
Summary: It's dark, your alone, he's asleep...but even if he wasn't, would it matter? He doesn't love you and he never will. You'll just have to make due. How Mrs. lovett may or may not spend her nights. *Rated T for vivid and scary insanity and language*
1. I love you too

Mrs. Lovett finishes closing up the shop. She's moved the drunken boy she loves so much to his bed, where he sleeps peacefully, dreaming of her. The sour yellow of the candle light still shines on the woman's soft face. She figures that she must be sad, because there is no other word for her tormenting emotions. She thinks a partial thought, it floats through her head briskly, like an enigma. For a moment she thinks about how pleasant it would be if emotion was only a myth. But, she quickly shakes the notion away. If there was no feeling in the world, it would be filled with millions of duplicates of her beloved Sweeney. And too much of a good thing, when the good thing in question was a very good looking murderer, wouldn't be all that great.

Eleanor sits on her dusty old couch and tries to take a drink of a bottle of gin that she knows is empty. Then, just as she did every night, Mrs. Lovett gets off her dirty couch and rubs her tired back while she climbs her old stairs. The woman brushed her hand along the singed wallpaper she knows so well. She can smell it's rustically charred scent, the drone of every night drags her onward. What was between her and death at this point? It was dark, cold, she was alone. Nellie feels as if she could just reach out and touch the gates to the afterlife. The idea frightens her and before she realizes, Eleanor has reached the door to his bedroom. Sweeney Todd, the demon barber she loves so much. She places her hand softly on the hardwood and presses her ear to the door.

Mrs. Lovett hears him talking in his sleep. His beautiful voice mumbles softly about pretty women and angels being tortured until they were lifeless shells. She smiles and opens the door, stepping carefully into the place she's dreamt about night after night. Sweeney rolls over.

"I'll kill him. Rest assure my friends, he will die at our hands," he whispers. Mrs. Lovett closes her eyes and carefully sits in a chair near his bed.

"I love you," he mumbles. Nellie hugs her knees to her chest. She knows he's talking about Lucy, but there, in the dark, with her eyes shut, Mrs. Lovett can almost pretend he's dreaming of her. She smiles at the pretty thought, a single tear slides down her face because she knows she will never have it.

"I love you too," she whispers back to him.


	2. A wonderful dream

Eleanor stands in the middle of her living room. She isn't tired yet, but she knows that she'd prefer to be in her bed once the gin starts working at her brain. Mrs. Lovett wonders why she's always the last to sleep. It wasn't her busyness, she had been done cleaning everything and closing her shop hours ago.

The darkness of the street outside unsettles her, all the sleeping people of London, none of them know her secret. The secret that sat outside every night in the dark, trembling. Her secret that suffers from dementia and depression, without a home to go to. And it was all because of her. Eleanor doesn't regret putting the arsenic in Lucy's tea, she only wishes that she had used more. It would've been more humane that way. Every time Mrs. Lovett sees the beggar, he heart cracks a little more down the middle. Nellie brushes off the thought. She wants to be able to sleep, thinking about Lucy isn't going to help.

Eleanor's eyes trail up the stairwell. She can see the hallway that leads to her bedroom and Toby's. Lovett knows that if you were to turn the left corner at the top of her decrepit staircase, you would come to Sweeney's room, but, two nights in a row would be risking to much. Instead of using the stairs at all, Nellie leaves out her side door and climbs up to Sweeney's shop. She carefully opens the door and silences the bell with her hand.

Mrs. Lovett inhales the smell of him. Old blood and bay rum. She loves the scent, more than her burnt wallpaper, more than the soft smell of flour, more than her mother's old clothing, more than oxygen.

Nellie moves over to the chair and carefully runs her hand along it. The old red leather is cracked in some spots and she wonders which parts of the red is it's original coloring. She moves over to the mirror and looks at herself in it. The woman broods on her sunken eyes and her mean looking pointed face. It makes her remember Lucy's soft, happy, wonderful features. Nellie puts the picture of Lucy an Johanna face down and goes to sit in the barbers chair where she quietly drifts into sleep.

Sweeney has been searching the whole house for her. The man had dreamt that his Mrs. Lovett had suffered a terrible fall. Insomnia gripped him and he needed to know she was ok.

He checks her bedroom first, but the woman isn't there. Then he rushes down to the living room to see if she's asleep on the couch. She isn't. Sweeney thinks feverishly about where she may have gone. He doesn't know what else she may be doing. To calm himself down, Mrs. Lovett's health, after all, was not his concern, he went up to his shop. Sweeney shivers before opening the door. The sound of the familiar bell quells his racing heart.

The man steps inside, and closes the door softly behind him. When he turns, he is startled, yet relieved, to find Eleanor sleeping peacefully in his barber chair. Sweeney picks her up and carefully carries the sleeping woman back to her bed.

Nellie discreetly opens one eye and looks up at her beloved Sweeney. With a final yawn Nellie falls asleep.

"What a pleasant dream," she murmurs.


	3. What have I done?

Eleanor lives for the night. She waits everyday, begging the clock to go faster. Once Sweeney goes up to his room and Toby is in bed she gets a giddy feeling deep in her heart. Mrs. Lovett loves the dark, she's had the feeling ever since the demon barber had come to live with her. The intensified shadows make her feel safe. No one can see her or her secrets when she is cloaked in the cool night air.

Mrs. Lovett stalks through the dark, skirting around the edges of the light shining in from the street. She climbs down into her bake house and inhales the scent of bloody corpse. She is immersed in memories. The first day of chopping up the carcasses, she remembers throwing up so much that she had to tell Toby she had the stomach flu. It continued after that, for a week or so but after awhile the vacant look in the eyes of the dead was just another gruesome cliché she had to live with. Just like mopping up blood and washing reddened shirts. She just didn't care anymore, what's another few lives lost when Sweeney, her beloved, was still around?

Nellie walks to the table where the unwanted parts were piled up. She smiles, a slightly crazed look in her shadowy brown eyes, and dips her finger in a small puddle of thick red blood. She smells it and slowly drags her finger across her tongue, tasting the iron within the substance. Eleanor closes her eyes and shivers in the dark, visualizing her inner ghosts. She see's the bloodied body of Lucy crawl, crippled, over to her, begging for money. Lovett just smiles at the horribly disfigured woman.

"I'm not sorry Lucy, you deserve hell," she whispers. The woman disappears and Sweeney's sad face replaces her. This affects Mrs. Lovett more than the sad blonde. She cries and tries to touch him but his image shimmers and disappears. Nellie shrieks and turns wildly, thrashing at the air. Suddenly the ghosts of everyone she's ever put into a pie surround her. The woman grabs at her meat cleaver and turns towards the door to run. Toby stands, staring at her with a dark fear in his eyes. Mrs. Lovett slowly begins to advance on the boy, the ghosts are gone now. Toby starts to back away but she catches him by the arm, her eyes reflect the fiery hate for her inner demons. Unfortunately she doesn't realize that her beloved boy is not a figment of her imagination.

"No! Mum, what are you doing?" he screams. The words echo and Nellie walks up to bed, not realizing what she's done.

**AN: I realize the last two were like chapters of the same story but lets just pretend none of these are together, otherwise I'd have a hard time expanding on this one.**


	4. They're not real

Eleanor stands in her dark living room, staring at the light her small lamp casts on the wall. She moves her hand in front of it and smiles as her silhouette mirrors the action. Nellie suddenly gets an idea and looks quickly around the room. She runs to get one of her dresses and sets it up in front of the light. Eleanor carefully balances a shoe atop the contraption and looks at the shadow. It now appears as if two women were standing in the room, rather than just one. Nellie giggles and pretends to shake the woman's hand. She gets another dress and another head shaped object, and soon another woman joins her.

Nellie suddenly thinks, what if my friends have husbands? Well it wouldn't due not to invite them. So she sneaks quietly into Sweeney's room and swipes some of his clothing, and shoes. Once the husbands were set up Nellie introduces everyone. Then she thinks 'what about children?' and it's off to Toby's room.

Nellie's entire living room is filled with people and once she has told everyone everybody else's names she goes to the kitchen and bakes them all a warm batch of cookies. Mrs. Lovett sets up a table in the middle of the room and sets out plates for everyone with nametags. She sits on the couch and laughs and laughs. Eleanor never knew how fun an imaginary party could be. That's when it hits her. It was only fun because she was so lonely and starved for affection that even pretend people were enough to make her happy.

Nellie frowns, this isn't fun, this is a personification of her worst nightmares. She is alone, and it takes an entire party of fake friends to finally get that into her head. Tears form in the corners of her eyelids. Eleanor screams at the horror before her. She stands and pushes the pretend people over. The shadow of the life she wishes she had wouldn't mock her like this. She had made the shadow in her mind and on the wall, she could destroy it as she so desired. Mrs. Lovett kicks the statues and throws there shoe-heads at the wall. What kind of a terrible horror movie was this?

Sweeney walks slowly down the stairs to the living room. He heard Mrs. Lovett scream, he knows he did. Then when he finds her she's fallen on the floor, surrounded by his and her clothing.

"Mrs. Lovett! What's happened?" he gasps and runs to her side. Eleanor doesn't look at him, she doesn't even open her eyes.

"I'm alone Sweeney, I'm all alone."


	5. Not like this

Mrs. Lovett sits in her dark chair, chatting lightly with Toby about the day. The boy has a glowing adoration in his eyes whenever he looks at her. The two mind as well be blood related with how close they are.

Suddenly Sweeney comes storming down the stairway. He's drunk, and Nellie quickly steps in front of her beloved boy, whispering harshly for him to run away and hide. Sweeney didn't get drunk often, but when he did, the demon barber was not a safe person to be around. Toby refuses, he won't leave his mother alone.

Sweeney stumbles over to Mrs. Lovett.

"You deserve to rot in hell," he hisses, his speech slurred. Nellie tells herself over and over that the words are being spoken by the alcohol not her Sweeney. Toby confronts Sweeney, leaving Mrs. Lovett standing alone and watching with fear in her pretty brown eyes.

"You leave her alone!" the boy shouts. "Mrs. Lovett has done nothing but good for you. She is a wonderful woman and deserves your respect!" Sweeney's hand silences the boy as it comes across his face in a harsh impact. Nellie screams as Sweeney strikes the boy again, knocking him down. Toby stands, wiping blood from his mouth. He throws a punch at Sweeney, sending the man stumbling backwards. Mrs. Lovett is reduced to tears as she sinks to the ground, a trembling mess.

Sweeney wins the fight. Toby is left on the ground, unconscious, maybe dead. The demon barber approaches Mrs. Lovett, she cowers away from him. He yanks the woman up by her elbow and hits her soft red cheek. Nellie sobs and he laughs evilly at her. The man steals a mean kiss from her dark lips.

Nellie tells herself that what is happening between them is good, it's what she wants, but it isn't. She loves Sweeney, not the monster he becomes under the thick blanket of alcohol. It's too late, Sweeney forces the woman's arms above her head and shoves her to the ground. Nellie screams and cries as Sweeney tears apart her new dress he hadn't noticed earlier that day. She doesn't want him now, not like this.

Toby opens his eyes and struggles to help his mother, but he can't. All he can do is turn to face the other way and try not to listen.


	6. I'm human too

**Haven't written in awhile...whoops.**

Mrs. Lovett sits nervously in the center of the dark room. She's never done anything like this before. A young stranger sits across from her, fidgeting as well. Johanna has never done anything like this before.

"Eleanor?" the girl of only nineteen whispers. Mrs. Lovett stands slowly, deliberately, and motions for Johanna to do the same.

"Yes?" she asks, a bit harsher. She is impatient.

"You gave me your word you'd never tell a soul." The youth frustrate Eleanor. She finds their incessant questions tiring.

"Yes, doll, I did," the woman states with a voice full of hidden emotion. Johanna nods.

"I'm just not so sure about this Elle. I'd be hung if anyone knew."

"I'd be hung if anyone knew."

"Yes, but it's not the same thing," the girl explains; she is torn.

"How are we different Johanna, you and I? We share a secret, a terrible dark secret that we couldn't live with without each other." They stare at each other's eyes. Johanna's ice blue irises become clouded with tears. She can't make up her mind.

"You can't know how I feel. You don't feel the chains that bind me. I used to think you were an angel, trying only to help me. You're the devil," Johanna growls at Mrs. Lovett. Eleanor sighs softly and walks to the window. She listens to the night birds calling to each other.

"Johanna, I do want to help you, but I am human. I want something from this too, or I wouldn't be risking a hanging for you," Mrs. Lovett whispers harshly. She wants to get on with what she came to the wretched place for. Johanna isn't so eager.

"You should leave; I've changed my mind," she hisses. Eleanor strides over to the smaller, younger, weaker girl. She softly lays her hand on the girls chin with her fingers sprawled over Johanna's cheeks. She bends closer so her lips are just barely grazing the girl's ear. Her voice drops to almost inaudible.

"What was that? Leave? I don't think so Johanna, after all, you invited me here doll," she whispers. Johanna shivers as Goosebumps form on her arms and legs.

"Anthony will leave me."

"Anthony's just a boy. With you're face you could get hundreds of the suckers. You'll never find another girl like me who'll play along with your delusions."

"But I don't like women Elle. I just thought I did once."

"You're waist deep Johanna, it's too late and I'm not letting go." Mrs. Lovett's tongue flicks out of her mouth and hits Johanna's ear. The girl's knee's waver. She can't resist anymore.

"You're right, sorry Eleanor. Hand me the Gin?" the girl replies, her tears brimming over. Nellie smiles and hands her a bottle and kisses the girl on the mouth.

"That's what I thought you said. Now off with your dress," she cackles wickedly. Johanna forgets her sorrow, she forgets Anthony, and she forgets her parents. For the night, she remembers nothing but Mrs. Lovett and the way she moves in the dark.

**Oh yeah, I forgot to warn you...little bit of girl/girl hooey...whoops.**


End file.
